A beacon of fine dining in Stanley Park for the last 25 years is set to close its doors.

The Fish House, the quaint, cottage-style restaurant perched above English Bay and next to the Stanley Park tennis courts, is closing on Sept. 30. Known for its Dungeness crab cakes, fish and chips and surf and turf, the white-table-cloth fixture has long been a standby for special occasions, from Mother’s Day to New Year’s Eve.

Vancouver has lots of Mediterranean restaurants. But only one allows you to order your hummus, baba ghanoush and tabbouleh in sign language.

A new concept restaurant in Kitsilano is staffed entirely by deaf servers and encourages guests to communicate in a combination of American Sign Language and written notes. Called Deafined, the restaurant on West 4th Avenue is only the third in North America to focus on hiring deaf or hard-of-hearing staff.

Deafined is the creation of local restaurateur Moe Alameddine, already known for his unique blind-dining eatery Dark Table. Opened in 2012, Dark Table employs blind or visually impaired staff, and patrons eat their meals in complete darkness. With Deafined, he’s set his sights on “promoting American Sign Language and offering employment opportunities fore the deaf and hard of hearing,” while also serving up “exquisite fusion fare in a warm, welcoming environment.”

Local foodies may have already noticed something interesting happening inside an aging brick building on Hasting Street in Vancouver, in the heart of the Downtown Eastside.

In early March, the nondescript venue at 337 E. Hastings St. – sandwiched between a Chinese restaurant and a corner store – hosted a pop-up fried chicken restaurant called Chicken Shack. The four-night pop-up sold out in days, with more than 600 meals served.

Then, later in the month, the popular food truck The Local Omnivore hosted its own pop-up for one-night only in the same space, offering diners their popular cheeseburgers with locally sourced beef and house sauce. An estimated 200 people jammed inside, turning a rundown corner of East Hastings Street near Main – if only briefly – into one of the hottest culinary spots in Vancouver.

Wondering where to find Vancouver’s best dim sum, Cantonese-style restaurant or five-spice beef wrapped in a Chinese pancake? Your search may be over.

The winners of the 2015 Chinese Restaurant Awards have been announced. A total of 33,759 diners cast their ballots over the month-long voting period for hundreds of Metro Vancouver restaurants. The result is an incredible cheat sheet for foodies looking to explore the city’s Chinese cuisine scene – from classic restaurants to new up-and-comers.

Winners were selected in 21 different categories. Five new categories this year looked at specific Chinese delicacies, including best har gow, or shrimp dumplings (Kirin Restaurants), best tea-smoked duck (Dinesty Dumpling House) and best five-spice beef wrapped in a Chinese pancake (Shanghai Morning Restaurant). The remaining categories looked at types of Chinese restaurants, from best hot pot restaurant (Claypot Hotpot and BBQ) and best Hong Kong-style cafe (Deer Garden Signatures) to best dim sum (Kirin Restaurants) and best Cantonese restaurant (Bamboo Grove). Continue reading:Best Chinese Food in Vancouver? 33,759 people voted – Here are the results

Have a craving for some Southern fried chicken in Vancouver? You’re in luck … at least for a couple of days this March.

Chicken Shack – a pop-up restaurant serving fried chicken and Southern-themed sides – will open its doors on East Vancouver’s Hastings Street for four days only, this March 5-March 8. The pop-up is the creation of the culinary team behind two East Van foodie fixtures: Big Lou’s Butcher Shop (known for its artisan meats) and the now closed but not forgotten Two Chefs and a Table.

This is actually the second pop-up appearance of the Chicken Shack, which had its first go-round back in 2013 (and was sold-out and swamped with finger-lickin’ patrons each night). The menu this time will feature two distinct varieties of fried chicken.

One trendy Vancouver restaurant is pioneering a creative way to feed the city’s homeless and low-income population. And it wants other restaurants to rise to the challenge.

Ten Ten Tapas, a tapas restaurant located on the False Creek seawall near the Burrard Street Bridge, has begun inviting area residents in for a free monthly made-from-scratch meal. A recent meal in the waterfront venue consisted of grilled cheese made on homemade sourdough bread and stuffed with Asiago, mozzarella and cheddar cheeses, paired with choice of beef-mushroom or tomato soups or seafood chowder.

Last month, we showcased Vancouver’s 5 Best Places to Try Poutine for the First Time. While those restaurants specialize in the Quebec trademark, several others that don’t normally serve poutine are getting in on the curdy action this month in the third annual Poutine Challenge.

Organized by local food blogger Vancouver Foodster, the challenge sees 12 Vancouver and Richmond restaurants putting their own unique spins on the dish, including an Indian and a Jamaican version.

Inside Vancouver is a multi-author blog, written by Vancouverites about Vancouver. Our goal is to give an insider’s view of Vancouver, to provide information, stories and opinions from the locals’ perspective about this great city.